OROP scheme to be notified before Diwali: Manohar Parrikar

Union defence ministerManohar Parrikar on Friday said that the official notification for the ‘One Rank, One Pension’ (OROP) scheme will be issued before Diwali even as armed forces veterans staging a protest to press their demand of the scheme said that they will return their medals across the country on November 9-10.

Manohar Parrikar: OROP official notification before Diwali

“We have unanimously decided to return our medals across India,” said Group Captain VK Gandhi, the general secretary of Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement.

On 145th day of the protest at Jantar Mantar and across the country, the armed forces veterans also decided to escalate, upgrade and intensify their agitation.

“The government is willing to provide us an OROP, which is full of discrepancies and is not as per its definition. To protest, all ex-servicemen with their medals will line up in discipline and dignified manner in each district across the nation on November 9-10,” Gandhi told reporters.

“The district magistrate will collect the medals and if he doesn’t come to collect it, the medals will be left behind. The DMs will be requested to guard their medals. We would request them to send these medals either to Prime Minister Narendra Modi or to President Pranab Mukherjee,” he added.

The agitation of armed forces veterans has continued even after the central government announced the OROP scheme on September 5. The veterans have said what government announced is not OROP, but ‘One Rank, Five Pension’. Meanwhile, Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar said that the official notification for OROP scheme will be issued before Diwali. “As you are aware, it will be issued before Diwali,” Parrikar told reporters in New Delhi in reply to a question when the official notification on OROP will come out.